Vancouver, B.C. – Dead Prez arrived to a sold out crowd at Fortune Sound Club. The legendary duo, most widely known for their “revolutionary but gangsta” ethos and the touchstone track “Hip-Hop” were in full form.

Opening up was DJ Seko – who deserves a birthday shout-out – and Kai from the genre-mixing group The Shottas. Kai laid down some Lokeynote-produced tracks from an upcoming album, including “I Wanna Be” and “Hard to be Humble,” getting the night off to a good start. JayKin hit the stage next to a half-cut crowd, who responded well to tracks from his new mixtape Sneakers and Videogames, even joining in on the title track. JayKin threw in an old fave “1, 2, 3, 4,” between some newer jams, “Galaga” and “Shorty,” both catchy numbers. Jay knows how to work a crowd, and he performs charismatically: his easy style is a good transition into any headliner, and he definitely set the tone for Dead Prez.

M1 and stic.man came on just before 1 a.m., and by this time the club was poppin’. It was a little unexpected to see so much support for an act as underground and controversial as Dead Prez, but it seems when you’ve been a permanent fixture in hip-hop for this long – 14 years and counting – everybody loves you. Their catalogue is certainly not as musically experiemental as some other acts, but their message and lyricism are aggressively potent. They touched on a myriad og topics – revolution, being healthy, runaway slaves, power, justice, clean water, peace and love to name a few – and wove speech in between song.

The classic jams all made an appearance, but the pair also treated the fans to a couple of covers, including their own version of B.I.G’s “Juicy” and a very sweet rendition of Al Green’s “Let’s Stay Together.” Overall a great night, full of music, message, and of course, revolution.

Dead Prez’ new mixtape Turn off the Radio Volume 4: Revolutionary but Gangsta Grillz is available for free download at http://www.deadprez.com.

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